


Facing

by reeei



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 03:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeei/pseuds/reeei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After seeing Jim in a body bag, after cheating Death to bring him back, Leonard McCoy realized something he does NOT want to admit……he has fallen in love with that stupid infant.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [面對](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085113) by [reeei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeei/pseuds/reeei). 



> English is not my first language, so this was originally in Chinese, hehe.  
> I've read other wonderful writers write about this part of the story, but I wanted to explore a little bit more.  
> So here it is.

 

After seeing Jim in a body bag, after cheating death to bring him back, Leonard realized something……He’s in love with that stupid infant.

God damn it, Jim.

 

 

When "it" happened, the bad news spreaded like a quiet wild fire. But no one told Leonard about it, no one. No one even _slipped_ their tongue.

It wasn’t until a white body bag, which should've never existed in the sickbay, was escorted in, did Leonard first got hit by the information like a train ran into a wall.

After the chaos was over, he was so pissed that he wanted to smash everything around him. _No one thought that he should know?_

And then he thought of something, Spock probably forbade anyone to tell him. Because Spock knew that if Leonard knew, he would do ANYTHING, even sacrificing everyone aboard Enterprise that Jim had just saved, including his own, to try to save Jim. That fucking pointed-ear smartass.

 

After Jim finally woke up, Leonard decided that he should take a long break to get some rest……

_Rest, my ass._

He opens his eyes, all he can think about are the sleepy blue eyes in the hospital bed.

He closes his eyes, all he can see is an open casket with Jim in it for everyone to mourn.

 

And then the Bourbon started to disappear in a fast speed……no use, it just made his imagination run wild.

And then he started to down it with sleeping pills, and told himself that he knows how much is too much.

And then……

 

 

Jim wakes up the next day, the room is empty.

Yesterday, when he woke up the first time, Bones left even before Spock did. Later, another doctor informed him that as long as everthing is normal in the next 24 hours, he's free to go home and rest there. But he still needs to wear the plastic bracelet for a week. If anything goes wrong, it immediately alerts the hospital.

Jim rolled over, thinking about Spock who visited him yesterday. And Bones, his eyes looked so tired, as if he gained 10 years in just a few days.

Guilt suddenly emerged. Jim can barely handle the reality which hit him so abruptly.

Jesus what has he done!

Wow!

 _WOW_!

 

A nurse came into the room to check on him, and then called Jim's doctor.

10 minutes later, during the discharge process, the nurse at the counter asks if he needs to call someone to pick him up. "It's better if someone accompany you on the way back."

He was going to call Bones , but guilt surfaced once again. Why? Why the hell does he feel guilty?

"Spock, you probably have nothing to do right now, come get me."

"......Jim, I have PLENTY of things to do , but I'll be there in 5 minutes."

 

Spock drops him off at his place and leaves in no time. OK, maybe he _is_ busy.

Wait, he completely forgot that since the Captain of the USS Enterprise is currently not on duty, of course the First Officer is busy......

Jim can't help but laughs. And then he realizes that he doesn't feel guilty about Spock cleaning up after him _at all_.

So why the hell does he feel guilty every time he thinks of Bones?

Jim waves his hands helplessly in the air, and decides to get something to eat first.

How long has it been since the last time he ate? Jeez, starving! Take out it is!

 

 

A week passed. One _whole_ week! _Seven_ fucking days! 

Every single person in the universe (OK, may be not the universe, but definately the whole States, leading by his I'm-fucking-pissed-at-you Mom) who knows him a little bit came to visit him. But that old man never came. No phone calls, no emails, _nothing_!

Plus, that weird guilt he has is still lingering, and likely increasing. Every time he thinks of Bones, his stomach ties into a knot.

"What the hell, I didn't do _anything_ to him!" Jim yells into the empty room.

Suddenly his comm starts to beep, Jim picks up at once.

"Jim," it's Uhura, but her voice is a little weird.

"Hi, what's up, Nyota?"

"Jim," Uhara completely ignores the fact that Jim called her by her first name. "Jim, listen, Spock just took Leonard to the emergency room. Leonard overdosed and is unconscious right now."

"Over..." Jim feels a lump growing in his throat, his heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach. "He....... _what_?"

"He's at the same hospital you stayed. Do you have any transportation?

"I'm on my way."

After the call ends, Jim freezes for a few seconds, then he grabs his jacket and runs out.

 

 

The first thought came into Leonard's mind when he regains consciousness is, _My head fucking hurts._ And then his hand...Why does his left hand hurts?

He opens his eyes, and is startled by how white it is.

_Shit, I'm in the hospital?_

And then he sees the cause of his painful left hand. A huge "puppy" holds onto Leonard's hand even in his sleep, as if someone is going to take his bone away. Oh for Christ's sake why did he use that metaphor?

It's Jim, face buried in the sheets on his bed, one hand clings tight to Leonard's hand.

Leonard sighs.

Shit, his head still hurts like hell. Where's the morphine pump? Where are the nurses?

He was about to call the nurse station when the "puppy" wakes up.

"Bones! You're awake!" Jim let go of his hand and ran out yelling, "HE'S AWAKE!"

Leonard decides that it's best to ignore the empiness he feels on his left hand.

"Jim, this is a hosipital, please keep your voice down." Spock says as he walks in. "Doctor, I'm very glad that you're out of the woods. Now if you would excuse me, I have some matters that I need to attend to."

Spock walks out. A nurse came in to check on Leonard.

Jim has the dumbest smile on him right now, staring at Leonard.

Leonard can't stand it anymore, so he breaks the silence. "Where are the others?"

"They were here before the nurses kicked them out. Spock is the one who took you here. He left after I got here. I wonder why he's _so_ busy, haha. Just now, he dropped by to check on you." That dumb smile is still there, and it's getting wider and dumber, imagine that. "It's great that you're OK now, Bones."

Leonard turned his head a little bit. That radianting sun ray smile is too much to bear.

"How long was I.......have I slept?" Fuck, he really doesn't want to use the word "out".

"We're not sure." That bright sunshine disappears in the blink of an eye. "Spock had something that needed your signature. But you didn't answer his calls." Jim paused for a second. Leonard bet it was much more than "didn't answer his calls". Jim continues, "And then he went straight to your place, but no one answered, either." Jim's voice is getting lower. "He asked your apartment manager to let him in......"

Leonard starts to think the building outside the window is very fascinating. _Look at that curve!_

"Bones," Jim curls his hand around Leonard's right wrist and mutters, "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry about?" Leonard can't control the anger flooding in his voice, he turns back to look at Jim and yells, "WHAT ARE YOU SORRY ABOUT?"

"I don't know!" Jim looks shocked, and he suddenly sounds tired, frustrated, and equally furious. "How about _you_? Sleeping pills  _with_ alcohol? What are you, _stupid_?"

"Who's the idiot here? _I_ did not run into a room filled with deadly radiation and _got myself killed_!" Leonard tried his best not to sound like he's trembling, "WHO'S THE IDIOT HERE?"

Silence sinks the room.

Jim stares at Leonard for a few seconds, and then walked out of the room.


	2. Chapter 2

 

The next few days, Leonard just wants to be unconscious again. At least that way, he won't be so irritated.

He still sees Jim whether he's awake or in his dreams. And now there's a new kind of Jim--the furious and disappointed Jim.

Fury, he can take. Leonard is pretty damn mad about what Jim have done himself.

But disappointment......thinking of that look on Jim's face is like someone slicing his inside off piece by piece.

 

 

During the discharge process, Leonard was planning on getting home on his own. But a nurse called Jim without asking him. Probably another victim of Jim's "charm".

Leonard is surprised when Jim actually shows up. He nods at Leonard, takes one of Leonard's bags of get-well presents, and gets in the car.

Not a word was said during the whole way to Leonard's place.

When they get there, Jim takes that bag again and walks in with Leonard.

"I'm sorry......" Leonard mutters, slightly trembling, just wants to break the unbearable, suffocating air.

"What are you sorry about?" Jim asks in a sarcastic tone.

Leonard swallows his irritation. He deserves this one.

"If you want to off yourself, there are smarter ways, you know? You're a _doctor_ for Christ's sake, why the hell did you choose the dumbest, washed-out-celebrity way to kill yourself?" Every word coming out of Jim's mouth is like a knife, cutting out Leonard's inside, one small slice at a time.

"Yeah, stupid me. Unlike _you_ , a Daddy's copycat, who chose the smartest way EVER to commit suicide." Leonard pours those cold words on Jim's face.

Jim's expression freezes for a second. And then Leonard can see a fire bursting out of his body.

"Don't you _fucking_ bring my father into this!"

"The whole world is going to say, 'James T. Kirk saved a whole ship of people! Just like his father!' And then they will forget about you in a _second_."

"What I did had _nothing_ to do with my father, or being remembered." Jim's face turns cold.

"Oh, really? I thought you have wanted to tell the whole world about how different you are from your father since the minute you were born. Well I guess from the look of it, you're just another kid who wanted to "honor my father" but couldn't. I wonder what your mom said to you, 'Good job'? 'Brave kid'? She just said those things because she didn't want to hurt your feelings. Actually she didn't--"

_Thump!_

Jim punches Leonard in the face. Leonard didn't dodge in time and slams into the wall.

"How about _you_? You knew perfectly what you _can't_ do, but you did it anyway." Completely opposite to his actions, Jim sounds extremely cool. "And for what? You're just a old psychotic alcoholic!"

_Thump!_

Leonard sweeps Jim to the ground with his leg, "I fucking did it to--"

"To _what_? Hmm?" Jim asks scornfully, "You cope everything with drinking, with running away. Your ex-wife, your daughter--"

"To stop worrying about _you_. I didn't want to be worried, be _terrified_. I didn't want to see you in a body bag, lying perfectly still. So, I took sleeping pills with alcohol, one inch away from slicing my wrists and leaping off a rooftop. There, I said it, _satisfied_?"

Jim's face freezes again, and soften, seems like he wants to say something.

But Leonard doesn't want to see that face again, the face that ties his heart into a knot and gives him ulcer.

"Thank you for the ride, now get out of my place." Leonard fixes his gaze on the floor, pointing at the door.

Jim's movement still looks like he wants to say something, he takes one step closer to Leonard, "Bones, you face..."

" _Get out._  I don't ever want to see you again. I resign, _Captain Kirk_." Leonard insists.

The next few seconds feels like years for Leonard. After he finally hears the door opening and closing, Leonard slides down on the floor, blood dripping from his face but he couldn't care less.

 

 

Jim realizes something. Although a lot of people tell him that he's _so_ brave, thank him for saving _so_ many people, but Bones was right. They don't see him, they see a kid who did the same thing his father did.

Well, he doesn't care about those people, he only cares about his crew.

However, his crew members all look at him with a mixture of gratitude, admiration, and anger. Oh, especially the ones who are closer to him, they were about 99% anger, 0.5% gratitude and 0.5% admiration.

Spock is the only one who treats him realitively normal. After all, that pointed-ear egoist pulled something like this himself not that long ago. Plus, he's Spock the Emotionless, he's not supposed to _feel_.

But, it was just _realitively_ normal. Jim can't recall exactly what he said to Spock before he passed out, only that Spock was there with him. Now, Spock looks......more human, and he looks like he can perform the "shed a tear in ten seconds" trick anytime.

So Jim decides it's best that he stay the hell away from every one right now.

 

 

 

It's 7 P.M., Jim mindlessly pulls out a record and play, about to make a sandwitch for dinner.

 

> _Georgia, Georgia_
> 
> _The whole day through_
> 
> _Just an old sweet song_
> 
> _Keeps Georgia on my mind_
> 
> 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　[[ _Georgia on My Mind_  ](http://youtu.be/fRgWBN8yt_E)by Ray Charles] 

Shit, what a coincidence to picked that _one_ record he borrowed from Bones...

Jim listens to the legendary singer from hundreds of years ago who was also from Georgia, while he rinses the lettuce.

Halfway through slicing tomatoes, he feels like he's going nuts. Every " _Georgia_ " sounds like " _Bones_ ". How is that possible? The two words don't even have the same amount of syllables!

Jim puts down the tomatoes, slides the knife into the sink, grabs a beer and sits down.

He actually gave it a lot of thoughts about why Bones would do something so stupid, it's not like him _at all_.

Bones enjoys drinking. Despite what Jim yelled at Bones about coping with drinking, he actually never drinks more than he can handle. In fact, Jim has _never_ seen Bones drunk, at most he looks relaxed.

Jim also thought a lot about why Bones is more pissed than anybody else. Maybe it has something to do with Spock "suggesting" everyone not to tell Bones what happened. But would that trigger so much anger? Plus it would be Spock he should mad at, not Jim.

It's really annoying to fight with Bones......

Jim realizes that it took him less than three minutes to finish one beer. He got up and grab another bottle.

To be honest, Bones is the only one who actually hangs out with Jim regularly. Spock is either busy with something, or has plans with Uhura. Scotty, Sulu and Chekov probably get together to do some God-knows-how-boring things, Jim would like to stay as far away from that as possible.

Unexpectedly, he thinks of the blood on Bones' face the other day...and his expression.

The weird guilt crawls up again.

_Wait a second._

_This_ doesn't feel like guilt. Guilt is the thing that he felt after he punched Bones.

So what the hell is _this_?

Why does his stomach keeps tying into a knot whenever he thinks about Bones these days?

Jim suddenly thinks of a really old word -- "lovesick".

_Damn it, Bones._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was very, very stuck at the end of Chapter 1, had no idea how to go on, but my friends pull me through.  
> Especially Summer whom I discussed most parts of this chapter with. YOU ARE MY MUSE AND EDITOR.  
> And Cross for her faith!  
> (What is this, Oscar speech?)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter! Hope you like it.  
> 

 

Halfway through his dinner, Leonard hears the comm beeping. It's Jim. Leonard instantly wants to shut it down.

He draws back his fingers, staring at the comm, trying to make him hang up by mind power.

Of course he's not going to quit. The comm keeps beeping.

And then he hears his PADD makes a noise indicating he just received a new email.

 

**SUB: BONES, ANSWER YOUR COMM OR I'M KICKING DOWN THE DOOR!!!!!!**

 

Leonard immediately answers his comm, "Damn it, Jim. Are you standing outside my door?"

"No," Jim replies. Leonard can picture him grin with triumph. "But if you don't answer, I will send my First Officer, Mr. Spock, to pick you up. Royal treatment, just like the last time."

"....."

"Yeah, um," Jim clears his throat, "How's your face?"

"My face is fine. And unlike you, my face is not my only strength, so I wouldn't worry too much." Leonard can't help the urge to provoke Jim.

"Bones..."

"Why did you call?"

"Bones, I........."

Leonard finds himself very nervous, he almost can't breath. What the hell?

"I'm sorry I hit you."

"I swept you to the floor, so we're even."

"And, sorry that I had you worry." Jim's voice suddenly drops low.

Leonard knows he should say something back. But all those pressure, anger, self-blame,and sorrow that are pushing him down since _that day_ , suddenly melt away with Jim's simple words. He feels a lump growing in his throat.

_For heaven's sake, am I about to cry? Jim you fucking bastard._

"Bones, you still there?"

"Mm hmm," Leonard tries his best to answer, "I'm sorry that I had you worry, too. So, we're still even."

"Bones, are you crying?" Jim sounds very flurry, "I'm coming!"

"No! You're _not_ coming! Oh damn it, you already hung up." Leonard jumps up, starting to clean the place.

 

 

 

Jim sits at Leonard's dining table, frowning, staring at him.

"What the fuck are you staring at?" Leonard feels really uneasy being stared at. He opens a bottle of beer and puts it in front of Jim.

"You lost weight." Jim says.

Leonard let his eyes roll. "You thought I was going to gain weight?"

"Well, you seem to be feeding off junk food and beer, you _should_ gain weight." Jim tries to use a light tone, but Leonard can sense a shred of pissed-off and worry in his voice.

"I didn't mean to do it." Leonard finally says, "I forgot I already took some pills earlier that day."

Jim lowers his head, switches to stare at the bottle.

"I really didn't..." Leonard tries to explain more, but Jim cuts him off.

"I know." Jim lifts up his head, his gaze so straightforward that it almost breaks Leonard's heart. "Bones, I know. You don't need to explain."

 _Fuck_ , Leonard thinks, _that lump is growing again._

For the next 30 seconds or so, both of them never speak. Jim keeps staring at the bottle. Leonard starts to study his own fingers.

"Bones, there's something I want to, um...need to, um... _want_ to tell you." Jim starts talking again.

Leonard looks into those fathomless, always-wants-to-drown-himself-in-it blue eyes, his voice soften without himself knowing. "What is it, Jim?"

"I, um...." Jim still can't get it out, and his face turns pink, and then red.

Leonard suddenly realizes what it is, he can't help but smile, "Jimmy boy, what is it that you want to say?"

Jim clears his throat, "Um, now that I think about it, it's not really that big of a deal. I'll tell you next time we......" Now, even his ears seem like it's about to drip blood.

Jim plays with his fingers, and his head is getting lower and lower.

Leonard stands up, pulls the chair with him, and sits down next to Jim. He reaches out one hand to wrap up both of Jim's hands.

Jim's hands are not small. They're slender, beautiful...Leonard couldn't help getting distracted for a brief moment.

"Jim, what is it that you want to tell me?"

Jim raises his head. Leonard looks into his eyes again, and then he leans in, gently presses his own lips against Jim's.

Leonard watches as Jim's eyes goes wide, and then he freezes.

"Jim," Leonard backs up an inch and smiles, "It's very rude not to react when someone kisses you."

"I.....you....I...."

"What, a cat got your tongue? I don't have a cat, Jim, what kind of invisible alien creature stole your tongue?"

"You k..."

"I kissed you. And?"

"You kissed me. And..."

"You're turning into a parrot now?" Leonard laughs.

Jim kicks back the chair, stands up, and backs up against the wall, his eyes still wide and round like a cartoon character. After three seconds, he drops to his feet and holds his head, makes a weird, muffled sound.

Leonard walks toward him, crouches down and put one hand on Jim's shoulder. "You're this surprised, Jim? What were you gonna say? I'm still waiting here."

Jim looks up, his expression looks like he's about to go on a suicide mission. "I think I'm in love with you, old man."

Leonard raises his eyebrows, "I thought so, but those two last words are not necessary _at all_."

Jim covers his face with his palm, "Oh my god, I have an Electra complex. My shrink said I might."

Leonard's eyebrows are reaching his hair line, "I'm not _that_ old! Oh, for Christ's sake, I think I'd rather you keep your mouth shut."

And then Leonard applies the most cliche and rom-com way to shut the stupid infant up.

If he's lucky, he might be able to keep him quiet for 60 minutes......

Hmm, 3 hours should be fine, too. Leonard assesses his current physical strength.


End file.
